


The Chosen One

by peskylilcritter



Series: Ashes, Ashes (We All Fall) [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Everyone is Dead, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-26 09:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18179024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peskylilcritter/pseuds/peskylilcritter
Summary: In which Anakin does not return to the Jedi after he kills the Tusken Raiders who kill his mother. Everything is awful for a few years but things eventually end up alright.





	The Chosen One

**Author's Note:**

> based on a prompt on tumblr several years ago. at the time i wrote the following meta:
> 
> "idea one: padme waits and waits, but anakin never comes back. eventually she tries to search for him, and finds nothing. she never even finds the tusken camp.  
> obiwan never gets the help he needs and his message never reaches the coucnil. he dies in an arena on geonosis, being cheered on by thousands of spectators.  
> eventually war breaks out anyway, only this time the jedi do not have an army of clones. they have volunteers and themselves and before the year is out their great order is half of what it was.  
> maybe someone - nudged in the right direction by palpatine - finds the clones on kamino after all. the jedi stop dropping like flies but it still ends the same way.  
> padme amidala is assassinated only weeks after she returns to coruscant wihtout her jedi protector.  
> there are no twins born on empire day. there is no new hope.  
> (maybe, one day, a roiling storm of darkness centered on one man arrives at the imperial palace. the next day, the empire begins to become a republic once more.)"
> 
> the other day i found the file on my laptop and decided to make a little fic out of it.

In many ways, this world is among the worst.

*

(They called him the Chosen One and never once considered that he might also choose.)

*

Shmi breathes her last with a smile on her pained face and Anakin—

He loses himself.

He loses himself and does not find what is left of him for many days.

Eventually, there is only the desert.

*

Even if the Council received his transmission they will be too late.

Obi-Wan knows it the moment the beasts are led into the arena, already mad with pain and hunger.

Of course, he fights to survive anyway and, of course, he loses.

The Force takes him into her embrace once more and this time he lets go of all his tethers.

*

(They called him the Chosen One and never once considered that he might need the people he’s chosen, who’ve chosen him.)

*

It was inevitable, Padmé thinks, that the attempts on her life would eventually be successful.

With the Jedi busy and dying, with Ani gone and Obi-Wan dead, they cannot spare anyone to protect a single Senator from a small mid-rim system.

It was inevitable that one of the attempts would get past her security but, Padmé thinks, watching her own blood dye her robes bright red, somehow she wasn’t expecting to be alone when it happened.

*

(They called him the Chosen One and rejected him anyway.)

*

Very rarely, Ventress catches herself reacting to an empty room.

She’ll find herself turning toward and empty space among the clones she is here to kill or distract and just manages to stop herself from addressing some smart comment to that bit of empty space.

Ridiculous, really.

*

(They called him the Chosen One and they doubted.)

*

Bail is on Alderaan when the Chancellor is murdered.

(Really, he’s the Chancellor in name only. In truth he’s a tyrant, a dictator.)

Relief punches the breath out of him and he reaches for Breha, holds on tight because finally, freedom seems possible once more.

*

(They called him the Chosen One and never questioned the methods by which balance might be achieved.)


End file.
